Everything Real in My Life
by renalan
Summary: What it means to remember and forget. John Crocker through the years. Post scratch. Slight Dave/John and John/Rose.


Because everyone was writing post!sctatch!Dave, so I thought I would try my hand at something John!centric. Gah, I tried to keep everything to the dates, but, um, let's pretend Con Air came out a few moths earlier? Title from 'How Do I Live Without You'. But this was so much fun to write! Do enjoy.

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><p>You go to see the new Nick Cage movie the day it comes out, standing in ticket line, flat popcorn sticking to your soles where you step. You're excited like you get every time one of his movies comes out, like you're waiting for something brilliant. So far you haven't been disappointed.<p>

But that doesn't mean you don't feel there's something missing.

You see him there on the corner, blond hair and red shirt and sunglasses and you go to wave like it might have been natural once— but you stop.

It's probably just a trick of the light.

(The movie is brilliant, but you don't go back. You're not sure you ever can.)

o0o

Her hair is a little too dark and her glasses are pink plastic and her dress is the wrong shade of red and—

Your name is John Crocker and this is your first time

She says her name— 'Darla, let me take care of you, kid' – and leans in to draw a line on your cheek with her nails, then her lips, then her tounge, hot and heavy against yours.

But her hair is bobbed just right and her eyes are almost red under the tint and in the dim lights of the club you can't really tell what colour her skirt was supposed to be anyway.

You kiss her back, with all your inexperience and your nervous gestures, because it's the roaring twenties and for a mad moment you think you're in love like in all your radio plays.

(Later, when the scenery has changed to hotel sheets and dingy lamp light, it's not her name you whisper when you come, but it's close enough.)

o0o

When you were little, you had imaginary friends. Three of them to be exact and you used to play with them all the time, running through rusted parks. You'd play all your pranks and they would fight back with an enthusiasm that made you giggle.

But what you liked best was just sitting and talking with them. You would listen enraptured to the things they said and all the places they'd been, all so so far from your quiet little town. And sometimes they would tell you about the game and about losing because sometimes you don't have to play to win.

Your father took an interest as you grew older, because in a young child imagination was needed but you were a growing boy. You had to learn when to let these jokes stop.

So you did.

By now you can't even recall their names.

o0o

The Chicago nightlife doesn't treat you well at first, a boy on his own, and by the time you finally get on your feet it's the end of an era and you are three quarters of the way through your eighteenth year.

You make a living of making people smile, because sometimes it's hard to do so by yourself. If you can help them do that, then maybe you've done something good with your life. Really that's mostly what you wanted anyway.

Sunglasses become a thing when you're just starting to get famous and for some reason it strikes a chord in you as strong as if you'd played it out on your piano. But every time you try to remember why, the music changes dynamics 'til you can't hear it anymore no matter how hard you strain.

You work irony into your comedy routine.

o0o

You can get ladies with your lopsided grin, your permanently dorky expressions, and that buck toothed laugh that makes you sound like a farm animal. They come to you because you are innocent and even when you aren't, the behaviors stick.

Love, you see, is nothing like in your radio plays.

Soon you get tired, just a bit, of these sad women and their curving bodies. You let them down gently and go home alone. In the following days you buy a new clock and its steady ticking keeps you company through the night.

o0o

She sends you letters. Steadily, one at a time over the course of years that turn into decades.

At first, you were floored, because even if you could make it big here, big enough to have your own radio show, you were still gleeful that anyone would actually listen.

She tells you that her name is Jade and that she is a fan and that you remind her of someone she never knew. And maybe you don't think that's so crazy because she makes you smile more than anything previously.

You can almost hear her laugh from all the way across an ocean.

She writes in green pen and it's like coming home.

o0o

You meet your wife after one of your shows.

She's standing in the crowd looking bored and for the first time in a while, you want to buy someone a drink.

Her name isn't anything familiar, but she's a psychology student and trying for the world, and the way she keeps her pale hair bound back by a thin band makes you dream of violet.

You get married in the spring and have a child by her in the following year. Because this reality is love too, more so than anything romantic. You're happier than you've been in a long, long time.

but sometimes, when she has to put up a hand to shade her face from the light, the sun dyes her hair just the right shade of a different blonde and you find you can't breathe.

o0o

The last thing you see is a familiar face.

You can feel yourself tumbling down the ladder rungs, the descent mussing your hair with breeze, and suddenly you're on your back staring up at the world.

She is crying to your left and you want to do a trick for her just to show her that it's all okay but you can't seem to make your hands work anymore. Still, you can just barely gaze at her out of the corner of your eye, lying in a crater, a fedora resting lopsided on her head.

She looks like Jade, you think. She looks like you. And in a sudden moment of clarity you think she is the thing you have been searching for all this long, long time.

But perhaps you'll think on that in the morning. You're awfully tired now, after all.

o0o

(You see him there on the corner, blond hair and red shirt, and sunglasses and you wave because it was natural once and it's still so natural now.

He waves back and you run forward, all gangly limbs and excitement because you're young again it's been years since you where able to smile this wide.

How could you have ever forgotten.)


End file.
